Which one is better a discussion or an argument?

Let’s compare both and find out for ourselves.

A discussion is a communication style of which the outcome is not predefined, while having “mutual understanding” as a pre-determined final goal before entering into it. A discussion is supposed to lead to the best solution of a given problem, a clarification of a misunderstanding or the best valuation of an idea, to mention some random examples.

Such “understanding” is to be reached & accepted by all engaged parties at the end of a discussion, based on healthy communication, proper exchange of ideas, information or opinions and genuine agreement (as opposed to artificial one for the sake of muting “high volumes”). It’s a collective, non-selfish & constructive process by nature (even if no outcome is reached yet).

An argument, on the other hand, is characterised by the “will to win” clearly visible through the show of interruptive emotions. An argument is less effective than a discussion in most cases but can be necessary depending on the counterpart’s openness to having a calm discussion. Having an argument is mostly the result of us being unable to suppress whatever emotion that we have at a given moment of discussing a topic, whether anger, impatience, anxiety, disappointment or sadness etc.

Paradoxically enough, having an argument at such times can be a healthy release of pent-up negativity; one that needs to be out of the way, first, for a calm discussion to take place.

I find arguments to be generally ineffective & counter-productive than discussions because their goal is either:

1. Predefined: when we argue for the sake of arguing (releasing negative energy because we WANT to), OR
2. Non-defined at all, when we argue because that’s all we can do now (releasing negative energy because we CAN’T discuss calmly)

Therefore, enforcing an arguing style of communication is a counter-productive, selfish & unfair form of communication aimed at convincing the other party of one’s points of views, legitimizing the use of irrational communication (shouts, fictitious outrage, refusal of agreement, interruptions, unmeant disagreements, lack of self-reflection, manipulation of facts etc.).

An argument is at its best when it means “a reason given in proof or rebuttal”, only as part of a debate or a discussion and not as a way of communication.

Spoken poetry: If I should have a daughter …

If I should have a daughter…

If I should have a daughter, I would have her listen to this

I would tell her she would never have to fall into the abyss,

That she is loved & worthy, regardless of others might say,

That she’s as cute, smart, funny & beautiful, as is Sarah Kay

And that she can be a more talented poet herself, one day.

So, when she thinks that her life is devoid from a true role-model,

And that the world is beating her down in a harsh & endless struggle,

That she doesn’t know any more who to love, hate, hug, or strangle,

That she could create one in her own fantastic imagination,

A lady freed from cultural dogmas & superficial fascination,

A fairy-tail young lady, more perfect than her life can present,

Confidently happy & content, yet as imperfect as reality can get.

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Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter …

If you can’t motivate yourself, nobody else will. Do you agree?

Yes, and no.

Self-motivation, when existent, is more powerful than any external motivational factor, yes. It’s no wonder that “self-motivational abilities” are often mentioned as a characteristic trait/habit of the majority of successful people.

Having said this, I also believe that all humans experience some degree of low motivation at some stages of their lives, as a result of continuous hardships, disappointments or “bad luck”, even when they’re putting in their utmost energy and positive hope in it. In such case, the power of external motivation comes in very handy or even necessary. 

Sometimes that inspirational voice in ourselves dies out or is muted down though all kinds of factors and it does no harm in such case to call in the help of external motivators, whether professional or simply existent in our comfort zones; a good friend, a colleague or a family member. 

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do

Motivation has become an industry of itself, with big names like Anthony Robbins inspiring millions around the world with what often sounds like common sense but nonetheless very powerful to hear repetitively. But also through world-famous platforms like TED Talks featuring people from all backgrounds and colours who share the most inspiring words that we need to hear in order to revive our desire to achieve, flourish or believe in ourselves once again.

Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation

 

 

What is your song of the day?

Avicii – Wake Me Up

Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can’t tell where the journey will end
But I know where it starts

They tell me I’m too young to understand
They say I’m caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don’t open up my eyes
Well that’s fine by me

So wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost

So wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost

I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
I hope I get the chance to travel the world
And I don’t have any plans
I wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life’s a game made for everyone
And love is the prize

So wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost

So wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost

I didn’t know I was lost
I didn’t know I was lost
I didn’t know I was lost
I didn’t know I was lost

 

Dedicated to those who may lose, but are never lost.

What is The Best Movie Soundtrack of All Times?

Music is music, and songs are songs.

Let music be music and let songs be songs.

Music always speaks for itself and needs no words or lyrics to do the narration, move our emotions, entice our actions or feed our imagination. Many of us seem to overlook the fact that songs have become the modern replacement of poetry in our modern lives, whether we like it or not, whether we think of it as better or worse. My relation with poetry is sporadic & unreliable; mine with music is stable and utterly healthy and rewarding.

We do like “naked music” more than songs & poetry.

And we do think songs are better than poems and prose, that’s why songs are more flourishing than poems and lyrics that are stripped off melody & musicality. We like music more, whether separate, attached, arranged or chaotic. Whether it makes us react in the strange body-movements we call “dance” or leave the reaction to our heart-beats or shivery goosebumps. It is as if words of poetry and prose would be nothing without music. I, say, yes! Prose and poetry would be nothing without music. Songs without instrumental music, would be devoid of beauty!

I like many genres of music, from Rythm & Base to Pop, and from Celtic to African. Yet, of all genres of music, I caught myself a couple of years ago, being strongly (and strangely) attracted to the music behind movies; movie soundtracks.

The moment I’d hear one of them, I’d write the movie title down, type it in or rush to my PC and consult the God-sent music encyclopaedia called YouTube for a “quick fix”.

James Horner, Buck Sanders, Michael Giacchino, Marco Beltrami & Hans Zimmer.

I woke up to the shocking realization that I may be an admirer of “modern classic music”, and that I don’t mind whatever the “stigma” it carries at all. I blame the likes of Hans Zimmer and James Horner, for inflicting such a wonderful addiction upon me. I claim no sophistication of music taste, rather a confusingly wide variation of it; I only got to know them through their movie soundtracks for the likes of Titanic, Troy, A Beautiful Mind, Avatar, Lord of War, Holiday, Sherlock Holmes and many others.

I consider them, with other movie music composers, to be the crème de la crème of all music makers in our time.

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Top-5 YouTube Covers of The Best Movie Sound Track of All Times

My all times spirit-uplifting, relaxing, energizing favourite is the main theme of the wonderful movie Pirates of the Caribbean. I have great admiration for Johnny Depp (especially), Keira Nightley and Orlando Bloom as performers. But, in my opinion, Pirates of the Caribbean’s success as a movie is at least 50% attributable to its great movie music work. Take the music out, and you take $500.000.000 box office revenues away. (Try to mute the music during the most exciting, most expensive action scenes and see for yourself)

Here is a collection of my top-5 best covers that have been made on YouTube:

Enjoy!

1. He’s a Pirate (Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean Theme) Violin – Taylor Davis

2. Jarrod Radnich – Virtuosic Piano Solo – Pirates of the Caribbean

3. Pirates of the Caribbean [Main Theme] by hemo

4. Pirates of the Caribbean – Up is Down (cover)

5. New Pirates of the Caribbean Suite – Klaus Badelt

ما الشئ الذي يمكن أن يضحكك ويبكيك في نفس الوقت؟

.الغباء “الذكي” والذكاء “الغبي” يضحكاني ويبكياني في الوقت ذاته، وكلاهما غير منتهي

If you’re given a chance to choose a career for a lifetime what would it be and why?

A professional footballer! Preferably, a famous & successful one!

Allow me to elaborate on my silly fantasy & non-fading youth dream.

If I were to become a successful professional footballer, a few far years ago, like the ones displayed above, I would have ruled the world. I would have done what I do best and like most while having the prospect of future financial stability and even a bit more than that (just a bit).

Like the “usual stuff”, owning my own house, car and having a solid study private fund for the education of my children (assuming I won’t be affluent enough to start an own university). But the prospect of leading a “mediocre but stable” life, was fiercely encouraged by my caring environment (you know, like yours).

Lionel Messi

Let alone the other “benign side effects” that come with professional football careers, like having good health and a perfect condition. I would also undoubtedly have had enough free time to exercise other hobby’s and even make a second career out of them like becoming a book author, or owning a record label that makes only my albums, listened to only by my family.

I would have travelled the world and learned at least 5 languages at a decent level. And off course, I would have also started my own business to unleash my entrepreneurial energy and creativity into something brilliant, useful or new. I would have started a number of non-profit organizations aimed at alleviating poverty, advancing free education or improving health conditions of the unprivileged ones among us.

If I were to become a professional footballer, I would’ve had the chance to meet  likes of Maradona, Pele, Zidane, Ronaldo (the only one) and Messi. I may have even been able to meet politicians and world and business leaders. I wouldn’t have minded the 30 seconds of fame bestowed upon me, featuring me endorsing a famous sport brand; not at all! I would’ve done it for free!

Clarence Seedrof

But I also would have had the honour of meeting the likes of Clarence Seedrof, the all time best Dutch player in achievements, who built a stadium in his native-country Suriname and many other non-profit initiatives across his homeland. Or Nigel de Jong, the other Dutch player, who transformed his addiction to sport-cars into a flourishing second-career business, catering for, among others, the UAE high-affluence exclusive cars market.

 

George Weah @ AC Milan

The “worst case scenario” would’ve been achieving what Geroge Weah has achieved through professional football. The famous Liberian football player who only peaked after 29, playing for PSG in France and later AC Milan in Italy, winning the first European Best Player award for a non-European, in 1995, next to becoming FIFA’s World Player of the World.

George Weah, a degree holder in Management.

The same football player crowned his career by his pursuit of a degree at a university in Miami, USA, after his marginal defeat in the national election of Liberia to Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who had what he did not have back then, a degree. The former professional footballer turned active politician and country leader, earned a Masters degree in Management from Devry University in Miami in 2013.

 

George Weah’s Election Loss

I guess if you can become a professional football player nowadays, you truly can become anyone and achieve anything.  All you have to to do is to start kicking a ball at a younger age, aiming at… some goal!

I should have become one and pursued my very first true passion, shouldn’t I?

Is it too late?

Who Has Impacted Your Leadership the Most?

My father,

with his tireless instillment of the importance of knowledge seeking, critical thinking, truth telling and caring for the weak, even when not around all the time.

 

 

Is It Okay to View Life With BEIGE-tinted Glasses, Instead of ROSE?

Don’t you hear this too often: “He views the world with rose-tinted glasses”. What is this all about?

Who said that rose should always be the choice? What if I like beige as my metaphoric colour of life, that brings about the same feelings as rose does to the rest of humanity? I don’t always try to view the world with rose-tinted glasses or follow the metaphoric hype blindly, because frankly “rose” is not exactly my favourite colour, when it comes to viewing life as it is.

Life is not rose-tinted, and it does not become rose-tinted either when putting on rose-tinted spectacles. Life is colour-blind, colourful, “colourish”, multicoloured, colour-rich and colourless. Life can be a grey turbulent stormy day or a colourless quiet nap in sunny garden interrupted only by silent merriments of a shy breeze.

How many colours did you count in this imaginary scene?

Rose is only part of it. Green, blue, yellow, red, grey, black or white colours contribute inextricably to making the mix the more natural one, a more whole one. Seeing the world via only rose-tinted glasses or only grey-tinted glasses manipulates the colour of trees, rivers, doves, sands, skies, lips and fire. It corrupts the natural “glow of emotions” and the spontaneous flow of thoughts. It also “dehumanizes” the inimitable beauty of a natural skin-colour. Try it!

Try to add rose to any “colour” you know of people, you know the skin-colour of people, while wearing your rose-tinted glasses. What image  would you really get now of that stunning sociable lady or that handsome funny man? I’d say an alien, an unearthly creature, to which my first spontaneous reaction would/should naturally be: estrangement and as a result of this, fear of strangers and strange.. things.

We are naturally made up to pick and observe all of these colours of life together or separate, for a reason, even when born colour-blind, I believe.

“Interruption”: People who are colour blind are believed to be generally less attentive to their appearance, by nature of the defect in their “life camera-lens”, with which they register the physical glow of things. They have little to great difficulty combining cloths of different or similar colours. As a result, they have difficulty being conventionally well-dressed or fashionable, even if they manage to be presentable. The interesting thing is that this is not a loss or a negative thing at all. You see, being less conditioned to their appearance makes them more attentive to the crucial, basic, non-superficial side of life with less care for what people think of them or view them (appearances). A dear person to me is like that, and it took me knowing this tiny piece of information to appreciate him more.

The later established relationships between colours & emotions are the result of psychology as a science (Colour Psychology). But like most social sciences, psychology is the explanation and writing down of what has always been done by humans. We behaved in a certain way, without knowing why we behaved in certain way and then came psychology to tell us that using theorization, experimentation and analysis.  And we have learned to appreciate all of these colours, because we were able to observe them and make them part of what we have perceived as “whole”:, throughout our life, no matter long or short.

Do not choose one colour and cloud the clarity of your sight voluntarily. Negativity is only one colour of life, with black or grey as property psychology colours attributed to it. Well, I like them both, too; black AND grey. I like to put on these grey glasses once in a while, because I want to and I need to. They allow me to appreciate the natural colours of things and people I already have, seek appreciation and embrace contentment, whenever I take them off.

Did you know that transparent glasses are always better for… a clear sight?

Eye-glasses are never rose, grey, black or brown per definition. Actually, glass is naturally transparent, colours were only added afterwards to it when it became possible in terms of making or producing. Also, remember that eye-glasses only have a different colour when the intent of wearing them is non-medical (not intended for improving sight) but aimed at “masking” or covering something else in its natural form (devoid of artificial colour), mostly under the pretence of being fashionable, thereby manipulating a certain clarity that we can’t deal with at some point, like a too shiny sunlight in an otherwise beautiful sunny day (or a too grim private situation amidst a happy family occasion).

Why do people wear black glasses at funerals? What are they hiding? Their tears? Why? Could it be, because it is “fashionable” and more likeable to be happy all the time? What if you truly are not happy? To whom would you pay “allegiance”; to you true emotions or to what people want them to be?

“Transparent” is my all times and all places favourite colour, for it is the colour of clarity, honesty, neutrality and tolerance. It tolerates the existence of all other colours in unequivocal peace and harmony.

Transparent is the true colour of invincible inner-happiness.

Laughed My Ass Off Until I Woke Up One Day And Found That I Had No Ass Left!

I like to invent acronyms, as I ago (AIG). You know, like the wide-spread shortening of “By The Way” into BTW.

Weird topic, you think? Not really, give me and yourself 10-50 lines of break and we may both find out that I may actually be going somewhere with this. 🙂

A few years ago, I invented my own version of “LMAO“, the well-known internet slang meaning “Laughing My Ass Off”.  I invented it but I did not protect it, stupidly enough, cause it must be taking over the internet now like a storm without me noticing. Anyway, there is an intriguing background story to this whole thing too. Here it is:

I used to be overly active on Facebook from 2006 until about 3 years ago. You know, when I was young, fun (like you were) and obsessed with my second life, having only a positive & popular digital image to convey, after submitting to the “peer pressure” of another 1,5 billion people around the world who make up the total count of registered users of Facebook.

At that time, there was a female Facebook-friend of mine who used to have a monopoly on the use of LMAO on Facebook, thereby slowing the loading time of the whole Facebook website on a daily basis. She would add LMAO to almost every post, at the end of almost any and each status update on Facebook, almost everyday! 

This should have been quite positive social media daily habit, right? After all, we are constantly told that social media is all about being positive, right? Well, NO! [That was my alter-ego speaking]. And my alter-ego thought of it differently at that time and triggered me to come to “the rescue” of that poor girl from a looming hazard to her future self-image. You see, I have seen that Facebook female friend in real life since she was a real life friend too in college, as an international student.

We had an excellent friendship enabled by our shared love for “social life” and discussion. Knowing the meaning of LMAO, while having a crystal-clear picture of how her almost anorexic body-posture looked like in real-life, and an idea of how she thinks of it in her not-so-real perception as being too fat (!), constantly popping into my mind every time she claims that she just “Laughed Her Ass Off” about something, I became scared. Terrified! So I came to her rescue and posted a well-meant status-reply on Facebook trying to be as subtle as I could, saying: LMAOUIWUODAFTIHNAL!

She [liked] my post on Facebook and replied with a big innocent smiley. I guess she was still “laughing her ass off” and she viewed my reply as “gibberish”, while rolling on the floor. No surprise there! But I was serious and I had to break it down to her, so she gets my very urgent life-saving warning. So, I posted this as a follow-up: Laughing My Ass Off Until I Woke Up One Day And Found That I Had No Ass Left, expecting her to get the hint. Her reaction?

Well, she posted three lines of a weird collection of laughing social media slang, tens of “haha’s” and smiley’s, skilfully jammed together in one reply that was visibly giggling on my screen, almost causing it to shake in “solidarity” with her giggle, and nearly causing it to fall off my desk and break! I held my screen with both hands to stop the “giggling” and clicked on a different page to calm down my PC. Now, that was some literally “damaging positivity”, wasn’t it?

Do you get my point? Well, she didn’t. She was a bright young lady, but she did not get it. She never broke that “damaging habit” of laughing too much, despite my stubborn resolution to “talk some positive sense” into her in the sense of “A day not laughed, in YOUR case, is a day gained”! I was just trying to be positive!

And, BTW (which, BTW, also means: Added-Value Tax in Dutch), the only reason why my self-invented term: LMAOUIWUODAFTIHNAL, did not pick up steam to go viral in the ever-expanding universe of social media, and the only reason why it was not added to the vast dictionary of internet slang (or the likes of Merriam-Webster) was the length of it. It was way too long. Even typing it was a pain in the BPTWSO (body part that we sit on). This subtracted from the very function of coining an acronym: shortening & simplification.

Other than that, I pride myself on the fact that many people, especially that girl, who did have a name but whom I preferred to call Meskina (which means “poor girl” in Arabic), still thinks it was a spark of “pure disturbingly disturbed genius”, or as she put it; PDDG!

In Arabic they say:”Good things you do, bad things you get”. My intentions were good and positive. I was just trying to relieve her from a future misery resulting from being “too positive” about her posts at the expense of… her BPTWSO. I hope she is happy now in a more “positive” way, and has a BPTWSO left to sit on.